PALO CEDRO, Calif. -- Junction Elementary School District had an exciting day at their 5th annual First Responders Day where kids got to meet local heroes.

Cal Fire, Redding Police Department, the National Guard and many more first responder agencies came out to Junction Elementary School Friday morning to explain to the kids what they do every day.

The school started off with a school wide assembly where a United States Army Helicopter flew down in front of the students.

After the assembly students were brought out by grade level where they got to hug Smokey Bear, try on first responder gear as well as learn more about each profession.

"We are just so pumped for the students to see this," said Superintendent Principal Darin Pust. "We celebrated our veterans as well this morning as part of the event, veterans and first responders, for them to be grateful for the people in our community that keep them safe."

According to Junction Elementary Foundation President and parent, Dannette Tona, this event is something that sticks with the kids and is a great career opportunity for them in their futures.

"Most of the teachers will tell us that (the students) will go out during recess, and they are all like 'Let's play first responders!'," said Tona.

Foothill High School EMT Regional Occupation Program (ROP) students also joined the fun and spent the morning teaching kids what they have learned in their program so far.

Using a dummy the kids got to learn about assessing a patient, chest compression and got to see the inside of an ambulance.

"I don't know, for me when I was kid being able to learn about all this stuff and see all of it was pretty cool, pretty inspiring. It's what made me decide I want to become an EMT or anything in the nursing program," said Hleeja Xiong, a student in the program." I wanna make sure that they're well-educated and see them happy because it's amazing to save someone's life."